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An Examination of the Representation of Crime News in Contemporary Irish Print Media Eimear Rabbitte Dublin Institute of Technology, [email protected]

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An Examination of the Representation of Crime News in Contemporary Irish Print Media Eimear Rabbitte Dublin Institute of Technology, Eimear.Rabbitte@Dit.Ie Dublin Institute of Technology ARROW@DIT Dissertations Social Sciences 2012-9 Feeding Fear? : An Examination of the Representation of Crime News in Contemporary Irish Print Media Eimear Rabbitte Dublin Institute of Technology, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.dit.ie/aaschssldis Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Rabbitte, E.: Feeding Fear? : An Examination of the Representation of Crime News in Contemporary Irish Print Media. Dublin, DIT, September 2012. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Sciences at ARROW@DIT. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ARROW@DIT. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License Feeding Fear? An Examination of the Representation of Crime News in Contemporary Irish Print Media A thesis submitted to the Dublin Institute of Technology in part fulfilment of the requirements for award of Masters (M.A.) in Criminology By Eimear Rabbitt September 2012 Supervisor: Mairead Seymour Department of Social Sciences, Dublin Institute of Technology Declaration I hereby certify that the material submitted in this thesis towards the award of the Masters (M.A.) in Criminology is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for any academic assessment other than part-fulfilment of the award named above. Signature of candidate………………………………………………………………….. Date……………………………………………………………………………….......... Abstract Crime is a timeless phenomenon. Its inherent ability to both fascinate and appal has made reporting of crime an intrinsic part of newspapers since the dawn of the printing press. The interest surrounding crime validates the need for accurate and consistent reporting. This renders it a regular feature of the daily news cycle and thus a fixture in our everyday lives. Reading or hearing about it through the news media is the only contact that many people will have with crime throughout their lives. Therefore, the manner in which crime news is both presented and portrayed to the general public is of crucial importance. Academic research has described how the media have a propensity to over-report news of violent crime, which can lead to a negative external perception of crime. In order to re-assess the matter in a contemporary Irish context, this research study set out to examine crime reporting in modern- day Ireland. Through the use of newspaper analysis and in-depth interviews, the study finds that although crime is a daily feature of the news coverage, its position within the newspaper is not as prominent as one may expect. Moreover, a lack of in-depth crime reporting and a need for more detailed analysis of the crime issue also emerged. Distinct differences between the styles of reportage given to crime news in tabloid and in broadsheet newspapers have been examined and noted. Moreover, external factors, such as public demand and the news cycle, were found to have impacted upon whether or not the crime news in question dominated. Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Mairead Seymor, whose assistance, guidance and patience proved invaluable throughout the completion of this research study. I would like to thank the teaching staff at Dublin Institute of Technology for their commitment during the year and to the library staff for their assistance in the collection of data for analysis. I am also grateful to Michael Foley, my former lecturer in the School of Media for his advice and knowledge on the subject area. Thank you to Jenny Goggin and Sean Close for their generosity and valuable comments and also to my fellow classmates for helping to lighten the load with some memorable adventures during the year. I would like to express my appreciation to the journalists who were interviewed for this research study. I am extremely grateful for both their time and their insight into what is a fascinating and intriguing subject. Finally, I would like to thank my family, whose constant love and support knows no bounds. In particular, I would like to thank my mother, Bríd, without whom I would be lost. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….1 1.1 Context – Issues in Contemporary Crime Reporting……………………………………………….1 1.2 Research Rationale and Aims………………………………………………………………………………...1 1.3 Main Research Questions……………………………………………………………………….……..………2 1.4 Dissertation Layout…………………………………………………………...………………………………….2 2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….3 2.2 Crime in Ireland …………………………………………………………………………………………………….3 2.3 A Restricted Media: Crime Reporting Pre-1960’s …………………………………………………..4 2.4 Transition from Under-Reporting to Over-Reporting………………………………………………5 2.5 Crime News as a Commodity - Reporting Post 1980……………………………………………….6 2.6 Crime Reporting in Contemporary Ireland................................................................7 2.7 Over Reporting of Violent Crime …………………………………………………………………………….8 2.8 Sensationalism in Contemporary Crime Journalism………………………………………………..9 2.9 Media Influence versus Public Perception……………………………………………………………..10 2.10 News Values and the Production of Crime News………………………………………………….11 2.11 Media and Culture……………………………………………………………………………………………….12 2.12 A Culture of Fear………………………………………………………………………………………………….12 3. Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..14 3.1 Introduction…………………….…………………………………………………………………………………….14 3.2 Quantitative or Qualitative? ………………………………………………...................................14 3.3. Newspaper Sample ………………………………………………………………………………………………15 3.4 Content Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………………………16 3.5 Discourse Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………………16 3.6 The Qualitative Interview..……………………………………………………………………………………..17 3.7 Sampling Methods………………………………………………………………………………………………….18 3.8 Bias and Ethical Issues……………………………………………………………………………………………18 3.9 Limitations and Future Study………………………………………………………………………………….19 3.10 Reflection……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..20 4. Newspaper Analysis: Findings and Discussion ………………………………………………………………………21 4.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..21 4.2 Content Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………………….21 4.2.1 Volume of Crime News…………………………………………………………………………………………22 4.2.2 Format of Crime Stories……………………………………………………………………………………….23 4.2.3 Priority of Crime News………………………………………………………………………………………….23 4.2.4 Front-page News………………………………………………………………………………………………….24 4.2.5 Individual Criminal Offences…………………………………………………………………………………25 4.3 Discourse Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………………28 4.3.1Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..28 4.3.2 Discourse Analysis 1………………………………………………………………………………………………28 4.3.3 Discourse Analysis 2………………………………………………………………………………………………29 4.3.4 Discourse Analysis 3………………………………………………………………………………………………31 4.3.5 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….32 4.4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..33 5. Interview Findings ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….35 5.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………...35 5.2 Defending Sensationalism ……………………………………………............................................35 5.3 Language…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..37 5.4 Crime as a Commodity………………………………………………………………………………………………38 5.5 News Agenda versus Public Agenda………………………………………………………………………….39 5.6 Prioritising Crime News……………………………………………………………………………………………..41 5.7 Broadsheet versus Tabloid…………………………………………………………………………………………42 5.8 Moving Forward…………………………………………………………………………………………………………43 5.9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….44 6. Conclusion and Recommendations ………………………………………………….......................................46 7. Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..48 8. Appendix A …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….53 9. Appendix B……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..56 List of Figures Figure 4.1 Number of Crime Articles per Publication…………………………………………………………………..22 Figure 4.2 Individual Criminal Offences……………………………………………………………………………………….26 1 Introduction 1.1 Context - Issues in Contemporary Crime Journalism Everyday people consume news from a variety of sources including television, radio, newspaper and the internet, but few are aware of the potential biases in the construction and reporting of news stories. All news, no matter the source, has a constructed newsworthy quality; an inherent news value which determines why and to what extent a particular story will gain significance in the public domain and remain there (Pollak & Kurbin, 2007). This has particular resonance in the realm of the modern-day print-media, which favours the shocking over the banal and, therefore may lend itself to exaggeration and speculation as opposed to being the bearer of the unadulterated truth. The fast paced and cutthroat nature of journalism has always attracted criticism regarding the ethical conduct of its practitioners. This criticism is particularly relevant in contemporary media with the emergence of a celebrity culture and questions regarding a ‘tabloidization’ of the mainstream media (Harcup, 2007). This style of journalism has led to a preoccupation with crime, a phenomenon that shocks and dismays
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